Our star is quite active today (18 Apr 14). The sunspots in the middle have potential for M-Class flares. If you are observing the Sun, these are the ones to look out for.
A couple of C-class flares happened throughout the morning. The following pictures show the Sun in 3 wavelengths. The left image is a white light image of the photosphere
(surface of the Sun). In the middle is a Calcium-K image of the lower chromosphere. The right image is a H-Alpha image of the upper chomosphere.
Recently I have also started recording radio emission from the Sun. From these recordings I can correlate the recorded radio signals with the flaring activities on the Sun. I make use
of the SWPC GOES X-ray Satellite data for the correlation work. The picture below is the Radio Jove setup that I used in an open field near Old Holland Road for this purpose.
Sadly this site is giving way to a new condo
The recordings are done in audio as well as graphical files. The graph below show the radio emission this morning at about 8:15 am when there was a C-class flare (the
timing in the graph is in UTC). The sudden radio burst is very apparent. These graphical and audio recordings provide me a more complete picture of the Sun's activities.
The following graph is an almost real-time reference information from the GOES X-ray satellite (http://www.solarham.com) that I use to make the correlation comparison.
For Short Wave radio listeners, you would have experienced radio fades that are caused by this type of X-ray burst.
Cheers.
Alfred
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